Surgery and surgical techniques continue to evolve with advent and adoption of new medical technologies. Electrosurgery is a commonly used surgical technique in modern surgery. Electrosurgery is the application of high frequency, alternating polarity electrical current to biological tissue as a mechanism to cut, coagulate, desiccate or fulgurate tissue within a human body. Electrosurgery, in some instances, can be used instead of traditional surgery that uses scalpels, pliers and other surgical equipment. In a typical application, electrical current is applied to a preselected tissue or preselected surgical site using an electrosurgical instrument such as an electrosurgical blade.
An electrosurgical blade is a handheld instrument that includes an electrode. The electrode is configured to conduct high frequency alternating current from a generator to the patient tissue to cut, coagulate, dessicate, cauterize or fulgurate tissue in a preselected surgical site. The electrosurgical blade can degrade over time due to repeated use on human tissue. The performance of the electrosurgical blade can be compromised after a certain number of uses or after a certain time of use. Currently the performance of an electrosurgical blade is tested by a human operator such as a lab technician or an engineer or any other suitable operator. The operator will use the electrosurgical blade to cut a test material at a preset power setting. This testing process is subjective and the result is human dependent, i.e. the results are dependent on the actions performed by the operator. In research laboratories existing ball-on-disk or budding shear tests are used to determine the cutting performance of an electrosurgical blade. There is a need for a way to quantitatively and more objectively test the cutting performance of an electrosurgical tool, such as an electrosurgical blade to ensure optimal performance during surgery.